Killer Revenant
by DarthTofu
Summary: Heero has died by Wufei's hand in Endless Waltz. The result of this will be the breaking of an oath to never kill again and the conflict escillating into something far grander than Endless Waltz ever was. Chapter eight finally up. R&R Seriously, it's good
1. Chapter 1

**What If?**

What if, in the course of humanity's Endless Waltz Heero were killed? What if Wufei were to be just a little bit more effective and to destroy Wing Zero? Marymaya's autocracy would rein supreme. Or would it?

"Tell me, Wufei, how many more people must we kill?"

The Chinese youth's eyes narrowed as he surveyed the battered and sparking hulk that had once been the Gundam Wing Zero, its beam saber flickering and a few of the jets in its artistic wings failing to function properly.

"How many more times must I kill that little girl and her dog?"

His eyes widened as he realized that he hadn't been the only one to kill both accidentally and unnecessarily in his bloody life as a Gundam pilot.

"Zero will not answer me, Wufei."

His eyes became that much wider as Wing Zero's propulsion was turned off, the beam saber deactivated, and the green light of the Gundam's "eyes" faded away to nothingness.

The fall was a full thirty stories by anyone's standards, and the impact was enough to batter the Gundam that much further. The left wing was the first thing to hit, and the water was like concrete to the Gundam due to its achievement of terminal velocity.

Made of Gundanium alloy or not, anything that had been hit repeatedly with the equivalent of a beam saber it will crack and break under pressure.

The force was sufficient to spin the rest of the Gundam and slam it facedown into the water in one of the worst belly flops known to mankind.

Spider-web cracks appeared in the signature green cockpit area of a variable Geometry Mobile Suit and flooded water into the pilot's housing areas.

"That task falls to you. Make the right choice, Wufei. Make the right choice."

As the suit sunk beneath the surface a brilliant light shone from where the Gundam had fallen.

"No! No, Heero, no!" It was too late. The water blossomed upward with a tremendous explosion to ensure that none would ever again be capable of building the machine that had ended so many lives, yet saved so many more.

Tears for his dead friend still in his eyes Wufei stared down at the blinking lights and controls of the Ntaku Gundam and remembered it's first act- preventing the agenda of one to take over the world and doom millions by destroying a colony. By killing the people he had grown up with, known and loved. By killing his own family.

"Would an incident like that have to be repeated?"

_Yes._ The answer came to him instantly. _If Marymaya is allowed to take control of Earth and bring about The United Earth Sphere monopoly once again more people will want freedom of her tyranny. More people will be like us, forced to fight and kill those that they cared about. To kill their own souls_

"There is evil here," he said, repeating his vow from almost a year ago. "I will… I will…" he looked up from the controls with a quick jerk of his head sending the tears for his friend flying onto the view screensand yelling out the last part of his oath, "I will fight until I see no more evil! I have become evil itself to find what happens to those who can't stop fighting. I must fight evil until I too am gone. I must fight evil until I see it no more."


	2. Chapter 2

"I got nothin' left. But our self-detonation devices _could_ take out about half of the remaining suits."

"No," came the reply almost immediately. "Detonation should be done away from them. We need to limit casualties to just ourselves."

For what seemed like hours the stalemate went on, three Gundams, the Tallgeese, and White Taurus simply standing surrounded by a sea of over seventy serpent mobile suits. A total of five minutes had passed before communication finally occurred.

"By order of Ms. Marymaya Kushranata herself you are to be executed for opposing the rightful government. Open the cockpits to your mobile suits now and step out with your hands above your heads and your sentences will be reduced to life imprisonment. This is the only path which doesn't lead to death."

Duo growled and looked at the twin gattling guns leveled at his cockpit. "What do you think? Can we bust out of here before we die?"

"Maybe you can," came the reply, "But White Taurus and myself aren't made of Gundanium Alloy. We'll fall apart after the first few hits."

"I guess you're right," Quatra answered. "Much as I hate this battle and all of this death, we need to inspire everyone else on Earth to maybe end this quickly. We need to go out fi-" The youth was interrupted as a light on the console in front of him began to blink in sync with the beeping of his radar indicating the arrival of another mobile suit.

"What?"

"Where?"

"Above us!"

"That's… That's Ntaku. Wufei's still on their side. Heero failed," Trowa murmured. "This will become bloody, yet."

"Ma'am, another Gundam has arrived- it's Gundam Zero Five!"

_Zero Five,_ Daacom thought, _Damned Oz troops like to do things the same way as they did a year ago- the wrong way._

"This is good," Marymaya said into the hand-held radio in her hand, "You now have a very powerful ally in the event that these rebellious fools continue to resist."

"Zero Five is not slowing down and has not altered course for the Gundams. He's headed for the outer part of- OH GOD!" A hiss static went back over the com system.

"All troops, eliminate the pilots and mobile suits which have stopped fighting, then concentrate all fire power on the new Gundam!" Daacom yelled, his voice taking on more than enough authority to keep them from running. Loyal as his troops were to him, there were those who were apprehensive about dying. Facing an enemy who only wounded was like fighting to first blood- one would not be a great fighter if that was all that was fought to, but they would not fear death. It softened them up, and this new Gundam was fighting to kill and would begin scaring them instantly.

This bastard is going to fight against us? Damn you, you are a soldier under me not even Marymaya exerts control over you! You are mine! 

"This evil…" Ntaku swept the burning blade of its staff through a Serpent suit, slicing it from upper left shoulder to lower right hip and creating a brilliant explosion, "It has to go away…" He stabbed upward with the pitchfork-dervish, the three prongs erupting through this suit just above the cockpit and lifting it from the ground before Ntaku's arm stopped and inertia kept the suit flying.

"The only way to eliminate this evil is to destroy it…"

The left dragon shot out to smash into the head of a Serpent foolish enough to boost himself above his fellow soldiers and crushed the head into so much molten metal.

"Is to kill it all!" The right arm swept out again to cut through the next three mobile suits rushing him. Igniting the boosters in his back Ntaku surged forward, flame spewing from both dragons.

"Every last one of them!" he yelled, punctuating each word with the destruction of an enemy.

"I have become evil itself, and now I fight until evil is no more!" A missile blast detonated in the side of Ntaku sending slightly off balance and prompting a growl from the pilot's throat. "I fight until I am no more!" he cried out, slashing his bloody symphony once more.

"Open fire, open fire!" The voice belonged to captain James M. Truluck of the 31st Earth Serpent Division under Marymaya's command, but the words belonged to Daacom. Tightening his finger down on the triggers for both his gattling guns and the two remaining missiles in his arsenal he fired on the suit in front of him, the Tallgeese mobile Suit.

As his rain of destruction poured out he detected movement in the corner of his eye. Something white was headed directly into the path of his barrage.

"No, Zex, No!" Noin pushed her suit as quickly as it's battered frame could handle, dodged her own rain of death and destruction to trade it for that of her lover's.

"Noin! No! Don't do this Noin!" His words came too late to save her, not that they even could. The woman's life had already been taken away, her body consumed by an enormous fireball.

"No…" The word was a weak whisper, said as his body took over for his shattered mind to steer him away from danger. Vernie engines were fired without conscious thought and he sped to safety along with the three Gundam pilots whom he could only assume were doing the same.

"No… NO!" The word came again, growing louder with each repetition, kept repeating it until the word had become a shout, and then a scream.

Coming back to his senses immediately Zex Merquis exchanged head for foot on his mobile suit and rocketed back toward Earth.

"You bastards won't get out of this! Not with your lives at any rate!"

So, a lot has happened in this chapter and I'll sum it up very quickly and make everyone including the author realize that really hardly anything at all happened: Heero died, and thus did not show up. Wufei, on the other hand, did. He decided to fight to kill right up until he died because he wanted to destroy all evil. Meanwhile the Serpent Suits were ordered to open fire on Zex, Noin, Duo, Trowa, and Quatra. Noin sacrificed herself for Zex, the Gundams took a beating, but still got out okay, primarily because the Serpents were distracted by Ntaku. Zex, upon having Noin's death sink in, goes a little kookoo and has now decided to attack and kill those who have taken Noin, who he now realizes he loved, away from him. Are we clear? Cool.


	3. Chapter 3

_Author's Note: Holy cow! I've posted two chapters, gotten FOUR reviews already, and have yet to receive any flames? **Taps screen am I still on Fan Fiction or did I find some new happy-go-lucky web site? I'll try to improve my spellings, seeing as many people have noted my errors (Feel free to mention any more that you see… The B.E.A.K. Imperium will likely employ you) at any rate: Here's some more of the visions in my head… Anything that you don't like I blame on one of the many voices that live in my head.**_

There was no remorse in his heart as he activated the gun, not one drop of it. The blast flew forward at the speed only an energy bolt can attain. The Serpent it was aimed at absorbed the blast at an angle and in the upper torso. Incapable of taking the force of said blast the legs buckled and the mobile suit was driven to its knees before the blast erupted out the other side. A half second later it exploded, taking with it the life of Private Kenwick Tainer.

The next blast struck with similar effect as Zechs sent Tallgeese through an erratic pattern as pilot and weapon plummeted toward Earth at terminal velocity. He had already wasted far too much fuel saving these fools' worthless lives in a vain attempt to end what could be a full-out campaign quickly and was none too eager to be ground bound for the remainder of this engagement.

At a mere twenty feet above the ground the Lightning Count blasted the Vernie Engines strapped on either side of his suit's back and surged toward the wall of attackers rather than away as he had done before. The unorthodox tactic worked only because of its audacious stupidity.

Leaving the energy rifle to its strap on the Tallgees's right arm Zechs drew his beam saber, crackling crimson energy erupting from the cylindrical hilt. Dodging just as quickly as he had before for the three precious seconds before he was entirely engaged by the enemy Zechs managed to dodge most of the damage thrown his way, though he was forced to throw his suit's arms wide to avoid a pair of missiles streaking toward him. They detonated on either side of the cockpit, not from impact, but from proximity sensors.

While not enough to do more then add one more scorch mark to either side of the already thoroughly abused hull on either side of him the missiles produced enough of a shock wave to shatter some of the glass objects closer to the sides of the Tallgeese cockpit, among them the glass covering the levers and buttons required to be pressed in a quick sequence to self-detonate the suit. Glass shards flew through the air and cut into the skin above the pilot's wrists, arms, and face.

Ignoring the pain he kept moving, dodging as far as he could to the left. Swiping his left hand to the right he prompted his suit to do the same, the glowing whip of metal clutched in its mechanical hand slicing clean through two suits and lodging firmly in the body of a third.

Bringing the whip down and toward him Zechs sliced through the Serpent's pelvic area removing its right leg before the pilot could mount any form of a counter attack.

He moved throughout the battlefield sowing chaos and destruction for so long that he couldn't remember any of it. The only part that really stood out in his memory was when he stood, his suit missing its left arm and shield, his enemy missing its army and life. He looked down at his hands to examine where the glass had slit his wrists. While it was obvious by his lack of death that he hadn't slit the vein in his wrist blood had still flowed in an immense torrent from the wound each time he moved his hand. He almost laughed.

"I am truly alive once more… My hands are as bloody as ever, and Milliardo Peacecraft lies as dead as he was when I first killed. Truly Zechs Merques lives once more…"

_Secondary Author's Note: For those of you going "What? He's already done with the main battle for the Brussels Estate? What the Hell is this guy doing? This has potential to be one of the best parts!" I assure you that I'm not done yet. So in other words, I've gladly reassured all three of you out there that I'm not quite as stupid as everyone believes! I intent to continue this from both the three fleeing pilots' points of views and Wufei's as well as some more developing in this area. It'll take a while before I kill everyone I plan to kill. Smiles in an evil manner _


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four 

Even when he closed his eyes it wouldn't go away. The image of the people he was leaving behind, the image of the people he was betraying, none of it would go away. With each beat of his heart he saw a face, sometimes just the face of someone he'd seen in passing while grabbing a sandwich at a corner shop, sometimes someone he knew well and who was likely going to die.

And each time he saw a face he knew it was his fault that it would happen. It was all his fault because he hadn't been good enough. He should have fought straight through to the bitter end and died fighting to protect those people, but he couldn't.

Quatre opened his eyes finally to see where he even was. He hadn't been piloting SandRock at all- rather he had keyed his navigation system with an appropriate lag time to Trowa's HeavyArms Gundam. Trowa had, ultimately, been the one to save them all.

_That's not entirely true;_ Quatre thought to himself, looking hid half-faded reflection in one of the flatscreens. _Duo was more than instrumental in our mere survival…_

This was true. The moment the execution order came into effect Duo had sent his Gundam into a tight spin and toward his comrades. Taking advantage of the heavier armor on the 'wings' of his Gundam which gave the DeathScythe its crucifix shape he shielded both of his friends from the majority of the missiles and bullets sent at them.

His Gundam suffered from it, of course- a number of small perforations appeared in the armor making the suit look more like a servant of "The God of Death" than ever.

The armor was not all that died in that attack- while the wings shielded the upper torso and 'thighs' of all three Gundams it failed to protect the lower part of the Gundams' legs. DeathScythe, taking the brunt of the damage buckled as its right 'foot' blew away and the suit fell to its knees.

Sensing the hopelessness of the situation and their inability to do anything to further their cause Trowa acted. Though encumbered by the guns on either hand he managed to lift both Gundams up and slowly lift them into the air.

Fire from the enemy lanced toward the escaping pilots, but at they resumed control of their own mobile suits each pilot began to successfully dodge the majority of the attacks, though several rounds hit home and opened slight breaches in the cockpits.

Even wrapped in his armored cloak Duo was no safer than either of his friends.

Wufei was their savior. In a torrent of fire he blasted from a nearby building, both Dragons extended and the cannons that arched over Ntaku's head firing non-stop.

Faced with four fleeing mobile suits that had yet to kill anyone and were, at the moment, really incapable of causing much more damage and an enemy with an arsenal of both ranged and close-combat weapons who was fighting to kill the enemy chose to defend against the latter and was slaughtered for it.

_And now we're here,_ the Arabic youth thought, for the umpteenth time. Glancing at the screen displaying what his Gundam 'saw' he had a brief glimpse of the ocean before his suit turned to follow HeavyArms and that suit filled his vision.

For at least another twenty minutes they flew over the vast Pacific Ocean until Trowa finally halted their progress.

"Where are we?" Duo asked groggily, having been woken up by his inertia pushing his body against the straps of his restraining harness in the middle of a rather odd dream.

"Maybe I'm still not fully awake yet, but that definitely seems like water directly below us."

"It is," replied Trowa.

Upon his failure to produce any more information Duo spoke, "So why exactly are we…" the American tapped a few buttons on his keyboard to figure out his location, "seventeen point five six kilometers off of the coast of Japan?"

"Because," replied Trowa, "We need allies if we're going to continue what will soon be an elaborate campaign."

"…And we get allies out of 'Middle of Nowhere, Japan' _how_ exactly?"

"By doing this." With a flick of his hand Trowa disengaged all three suits' propulsion thrusters and dumped them into the water from roughly two hundred feet. The splash was tremendous, sending water flying into the air at least fifty feet and ripping a few scraps of armor from weaker parts of the Gundams, though without the devastating effects Wing Zero had experienced.

"Trowa… What are you doing, Trowa?" Duo asked, his voice more than a little on edge from the fall, and equally suspicious of Trowa having turned double agent once more.

"Relax. In-"

"Relax? How the hell do you expect me to collapse after I just fell into the ocean from a bazillion feet up in a Gundam that's going to start leaking water in soon!"

"Because," Trowa replied, "Someone will be along in a few minutes. I chose to drop us here because we're very near to water detectors. The Japanese have had issues with storms brewing quickly in this general area due to warm currents contacting the cooler waters of the Pacific. The result is often a powerful, slow-moving storm. Someone will be along to check and see what caused this within the hour."

"Trowa, your logic is faulty. Think- if there's a tidal wave coming how many people are going to head to the exact spot where it started brewing?"

"Lots of them," came the reply. "The sensors are accurate, yes, but other things are capable of setting the sensors off. Larger marine mammals are supposed to be sent away by high-pitched sounds, which are supposed to annoy them, but the devices that produce these sounds could have broken without their knowledge. In addition to this the currents make this area make it a very popular location for cargo haulers. If-"

"If one of them explodes it could set off a sensor and the Japanese Coast Guard would come to pick up survivors or contain an oil spill or whatever's leaking out. Got ya."

"So now we wait," Quatre said, feeling that he was stating the obvious.

"Yes," Trowa said with a slight nod of his head, "Now we wait."

A/N: Nobody new died in this chapter… That's because I haven't gotten to my troops chapter, nor my Wufei chapter, nor my continued Zechs chapter. Rest assured, my loyal follower(s), more shall die in the storm that has occurred/is still occurring. As always, R&R. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

_AKA: The Chapter Where I Spell Several Names Wrong_

"We refuse to accept this tyrannical reign you're suggesting!"

"We fought hard for our freedom, and we aren't about to give it up just so you can feel that you've achieved that much more in life!"  
"We would never accept you!"

The shouts and protests were issues from the throats and souls of over six hundred men, women, and even children who refused to accept the 'new reign' proposed by Daacom and Mariemaiea. More trucks full of people- anything from the semi trucks people had squeezed themselves into for the ride to the protest grounds in order to voice their lack of faith in where the world was going.

Serpent mobile suits stood before them to prevent anyone from actually getting to the Brussels estate and storming it, but they lost precious feet with each second as they were forced to back away as people attempted to climb the suits in some cases.

_This is the way. This is the way we end all suffering- through peace and through removing those who wield tyrannical power from that power without death._

If one were merely told the thought they would not have known whom it came from. Everyone present was in such a state of rebellion and uprising that the thought could have belonged to any number of them.

The actual mind that thought it was that of Samso Yamato. He was a veteran of the Libra engagement and, in that battle, had destroyed two mobile suits with minimal damage to hit own.

He supported his young son, born on the day the war ended in his arms and stood next to his wife smiling at what was happening from the middle of the crowd while his daughter, now six, sat on her mother's shoulders.

Smiling at her he indicated one suit in particular that was swarming with people. "See, sweetie," he said, addressing her in the softened voice one usually uses upon children, "This is what happens when you wield power the wrong way. This is what happens when you try to end peace. You're part of a protest to end a war before it can even begin!"

Ironically enough Mr. Yamato was the first casualty. The bullet that killed him was not alone, but it was all that was required to do the job.

The ammunition used for any mobile suit is, by definition, bigger than the ammo used on any other conventional weapon short of an explosive. While a mobile suit's armaments can certainly be used to kill people, it is an intense overkill as these weapons are designed to raze areas which are, in most cases, explosive and which have a high number of people crammed into them. Using the double gattling guns on the Serpent to kill a crowd of people, however clustered they may be, was the equivalent of using a guillotine to sever a loose thread from one's shirt. It will do the job, but it can be accomplished through far more conventional means.

The bullet ripped through his body like an arrow into gelatin and smashed into the cement the man had stood on. Shards of it, flying at speeds in excess of thirty miles per hour shredded through his wife, dropping their six-year-old daughter to the ground. She looked down at her mother who had fallen, transfixed by a particularly large sliver of the stone and cocked her head in uncertainty.

Her daddy had just disappeared. That couldn't be right. He mommy's head was lying at an impossible angle. She had once showed her a trick where she made it look like there was an arrow through her head. It had just been a headband with the two halves of the arrow made to look as though they had passed through her skull. This had to be the same exact thing. There was no other explanation. Only old people died.

Getting up off of the ground she waddled over to her mother and with the conviction of everything being all right that only a toddler possesses, attempted to slide the slab to the side and off of her mother. As she did so blood splurted from the wound to geyser up and squirt her in the face. A still-laboring heart could be made out where a smaller piece had smashed through her upper torso, the hole in the right ventricle plain as day, but the little girl refused to accept it.

Only when the heart failed to beat any longer did she finally realized what had happened. Her mommy was lying in a steadily increasing pool of blood. None of the heads rolling around her were fakes, and the blood was most certainly not fake.

The weight of it all drove her to her knees, and the impact brought a splash up resulting in that many more droplets of blood dripping down her face. Her tears cut through some of the blood, but when they struck the limbs they were as scarlet as the river she kneeled in which was steadily rising to fully encompass her leg.

James M. Truluck was not a violent man by nature. He just did what he was told, and he did it without question. According to Daacom he was one of Mariemaeia's most valuable soldiers, and that was primarily because of his lack of self-control.

And so he went on being valuable. When the order came to contain the crowd as efficiently as possibly and by any means necessary he was among the first to fire. Emotionlessly he smashed bodies to bloody pulps, tracked fire to destroy those who ran, and generally obliterated anyone who chose to rebel.

As new semi trucks arrived with more protestors he simply targeted them with his missiles while his guns still raked the crowd. He regarded the people he shot and classified them all as fools. They were fighting for a dead idea that, according to his lord and master, had never been right at all.

His bullets spent he fired off the remainder of his missiles into the crowd, creating huge pits into which the dead and dying fell. Executing a precise military turn with his mobile suit he blasted off toward one of the set destinations for mobile suits that could no longer fight. He intended to have his suit refueled and rearmed, but then it would be right back to the battlefield.

Daacom had classified them as the enemy. How could these people possibly be anything but that?

The little girl couldn't breath. In her six years she had yet to learn how to swim, and while she could breach the surface with her hands she simply could not swim up to the surface to get a breath of fresh air.

She was stuck in one of the craters created by Truluck's missiles. She lay at the bottom of one almost alone save for the eight dead bodies she shared the pit with. Their blood and that of a thousand others had filled the crater, and inside she drowned.

She held out for the entirety of the thirty-eight seconds she had been able to hold her breath before anything had happened and even for a handful of seconds after that, but she simply could not find a respite. She opened both her mouth and eyes and drowned in her own lake of scarlet.

_A/N: Damn, am I violent or what? For anyone who was severely offended by this chapter: Tough. These people are engaged in a war, and while amounts of blood might be just a _little_ bit exaggerated, this is a very real occurrence. When an armed militia group opens fires on protestors there is often enough blood on the ground that when someone new falls they create a splash. This being Japan the population density is ridiculous, and a large amount of the population has arrived to protest. While I'm not sure that the Gundams land in Japan in Endless Waltz, it works for my story, and I'm sticking to it._


	6. Chapter 6

He was a stupid bastard, and he paid the price for it. All four of the thrusters on his serpent were firing at full strength. The result was that he flew forward at a full one hundred thirteen kilometers per hour. Beyond that the result was his death as the mobile suit impaled itself upon three prongs of thermal weaponry before detonating.

The weapon moved now, slashed through one suit while a dragon burst into the mid-segment of another. Cannon blasts fired with devastating effect to rip through metal housings and burn the circuitry and pilots beneath into so much carbon scoring.

_This is evil. This is my purpose in life. To destroy it. I must be the one who destroys all evil. This is evil. This is my purpose in life…_ The thought ran through Wufei's mind over and over again, the sole offer for redemption that he could cling to.

_I must atone for my sins._ He sliced another suit in two, stabbed a second and lifted it as if his weapon were the pitchfork upon which it had been based to throw it into the path of the on-coming missiles aimed for him.

_This _is_ the only way to atone for them. By ensuring the freedom of humanity. If there is to be freedom there can be no more evil. This is evil. This is my purpose in life…_

He frowned upon this new repetition as more weaponry detonated against his suit. As many as he destroyed there were more to take their place. They couldn't keep the flow up indefinitely, but he couldn't exactly keep his assault up for that long either.

Dodging a blast from a beam cannon and firing two blasts of concentrated light into another foe he continued his thoughts even as more troops rushed to oppose him.

He was losing ground quickly, and they were still fresh with reinforcements. He had destroyed a number of the enemy's weapons and pilots, but ultimately those could be rebuilt. He had only so much weaponry at his disposal and it was his job to ensure that something irreplaceable was destroyed.

That left only two options: Mariemaia and Daacom. He didn't have to choose between which target to hit seeing as both were already in the same location.

Wufei shook his head, not for the waste of life in such a young woman but for the stupidity of the two in choosing to monitor the battle from the same location however secure they might think it was.

Thrusters blackened the ground one last time and the young man flew both to his doom and to his salvation. The primary reason that nobody tried this kind of maneuver, flying over enemy mobile suits, is that it's suicidal. One wants to be fully in the midst of the enemy such that a missed shot won't just fly off into oblivion- it will impact another enemy and, hopefully, take them out of the fight.

The troops defending the Brussels estate of course realized the importance of keeping everyone in the fight, and therefore had held back when firing in the midst of allies. However, when Ntaku was right over their heads and aiming was barely even necessary everything flew. Missiles, bullets, bits of destroyed mobile suits, anything that could be used as a weapon was and their target suffered accordingly.

Explosions shook delicate circuitry free of its housing, electromagnets lost strength, servomotors fired on their own and the suits smashed to the ground mere meters from its target, still taking heavy fire.

Wufei smiled, a grin just for himself. "They don't even know what I'm trying to do." Laughter escaped his lips as round after round of fire smashed into his Gundam and he continued toward the seal.

Upon arrival he slammed his weapon into the crack in the center. Using the enemy's firepower against them he merely held on tightly to the weapon and allowed himself to be levered back by the sheer force of his foes' attacks.

A mobile suit-sized hole creaked open and Ntaku fell into the crevasse both by choice and by accident the enemy's firepower having left the left leg inn-operable.

The grin still had yet to leave his face.

He could hear his own breath, and that alone was deafening. On top of that the man could hear the low hum of electricity flowing through his dash, the sound of explosions ripping through the air and, ever so faintly, the sound of someone screaming far, far away for their mother.

The last noise slowly faded away, but the others stayed. The man was terrified. He frankly didn't care how righteous Mariemaia's ideals were, if that Gundam, the new one that was actually killing people, the one that was supposed to be on their side, came at him he was going to run as quickly as he could.

He fired on the thing- quite frankly it was that or be fired upon by his allies- but he didn't put much heart into it. He always made sure that at least three people stood between him and death.

_He's not shooting back, though. Why in the world isn't he shooting back?_ As the pilot watched the mobile suit pried open the first layer of security into Mariemaia's fortress. It promptly fell into the hole it had created.

His breath rate slowed slightly and he almost laughed. The thing was defeated. There was no chance that he was going to die, now, not now that it was dead.

As he watched mobile suits crowded around it to fire into the corpse. That was all that thing could be now- a corpse.

Death is dead… We've killed death… The thought prompted the pilot to giggle just a little bit before he got back to the job at hand. That thing had to be rendered completely and totally inoperable. Even mangled and destroyed as it was that suit could still harbor a potentially deadly pilot. 

That pilot had been a stupid bastard, and now he had to pay the price for it.

Engines fired along the length of his Serpent suit and the man lifted off above the dead death. It prompted another giggle from him just thinking that.

He realized, still giggling, that he'd made a mistake- the same mistake dozens of men just like himself had made- he'd underestimated a Gundam.

Twin Dragons shot out of the pit, one of them slamming into his suit just to the right of his cockpit, the second a neighboring suit. Both failed to detonate and were dragged down through the fire of their fellows to land next to and on top of Ntaku with a jarring thud.

A moment later another suit crashed down on top of the other two missing its head due to cannon fire.

The process repeated itself- the hole filled with disabled mobile suits as the dragons were fired again and again, dragging more and more enemies into the hole. The light was cut off and all that the pilot could hear anymore was the repetitive **shunk**… **Thud!**Of the Dragons firing again and again, each time disabling another suit, each time dragging it to its doom.

He already knew what would happen, knew that he would die, and knew that it wouldn't hurt one bit. A bright light shone before him, almost like at the end of a long dark tunnel. Sadly, the man shook his head. It wasn't time for that light. Not yet.

He suddenly realized just how incredibly warm he was.

Wufei smiled for the last time. "Goodbye, Ms. Mariemaia. Goodbye, Daacom. I'm finally going to stop fighting. That's the first and last thing that you want me to do, though, isn't it?"

The smile stayed on his face, even after he pressed the self-detonation switch. It remained frozen in place until the very skin attached to his skull was burnt off and the bone beneath incinerated that that smile faded away.

Truluck was returning from the refueling station when he saw it. A column of flame flew out of the Brussels estate into the sky and consumed the majority of the remaining troops.

Dust and pebbles were lifted from the ground at such wind speeds that they could crush steel plating and with enough heat to burn through most anything even without the speed.

The man squinted and looked into the distance, selecting a magnification option on his console. Flying at full speed away from the tremendous explosion was the Talgeese Mk. III.


	7. Killer Revenant

**Revenant: **Noun. One who has returned.

**Killer: **One who takes the life from others

Sweat dripped from the face of Zechs Merquise. Each drop was, remarkably, a thing of beauty for what composed it. Salt, water, phosphates, oils, and excess fats in one's pores. In essence piss was dripping off of his face, a plethora of excess fluids, and yet each drop was beautiful, a perfect, glistening sphere that descended to the surfaces bellow to explode into that many more little droplets that, in turn, would repeat the process until there was no longer enough energy for it to repeat any longer.

The sweat came for a very simple reason: It was hot. Remarkably hot. A wall of fire all but consumed his mobile suit. The extreme speed that only the Talgeese models possessed was saving him for the moment, but the flame was slowly gaining, and showed no signs of abating.

As it was the only option left, Zechs flew as quickly as he could, stopping for nothing, not even the small, ruined apartment building that he was forced to plow through, the result of which was a wide tear in the Talgeese's left arm.

And still the flame came.

Condemning himself to a fiery grave, he turned the suit around so that his left side faced the enormous explosion and sped into it. The immense heat roasted him alive as he did so, caused him to produce so much sweat that his glands could no longer keep up with the amount required of them and simply shut down.

The heat was far too much to survive, would kill him, would-

The heat promptly stopped to be replaced by a coolness that puckered the Lightning Count's flesh into a thousand goose bumps and left him shaking against the harness straps that secured his body.

The sudden change in temperatures not only left him gasping for breath and feeling as though he were being frozen slowly, but also with a splitting headache, both as his head attempted to figure out why he was suddenly so cold after an inferno and to cope with this new cold.

Failing to figure out the cause of his miraculous survival his brain turned its attention to the current situation with a strictly military style of thinking. The majority of his Mobile Suit's systems were down having been melted in the intense heat and in the act of saving him from death. The entire left hand side of the Talgeese had melted like so much soup and only a fraction of the left arm still clung to the ruined remains of the shoulder.

Most systems on that side were down as well, having taken the brunt of the heat, as were many of the systems on the opposite side of his suit. If the readings he still managed to get on the splotchy diagnostic screen before him were accurate and any indication of the other side of his suit he was lucky that both Vernie engines had failed to detonate as one would have likely been sufficient to shred his body and weapon.

The right arm still worked, though with only a limited range of motion. Examination of the Beam Cannon still strapped in place on his right arm revealed that, somehow, the thing was all but undamaged.

_It actually makes perfect sense,_ Zechs thought, taking a moment to further examine the situation, _That beam cannon is designed to withstand its own blast. The energy coming out of it is nowhere near as intense as that blast I just flew through, though with blocking and appropriately high fail-safe levels it's conceivable that it would survive entirely intact._

He suppressed another shiver before glancing at his dash again. There was an incoming transmission. Something coming in planet-wide.

"People of the Earth Sphere: I address you all today. I address you all as your new leader.

"This day I, Mariemaia Kushrenada, take my inheritance left to me by my father, the great Tres Kushrenada.

"Many of you likely remember him as the man who brought you into the final war with the White Fang organization when backing down and merely allowing them to take control would have been the prudent course. You remember him as the man who quite nearly killed both you and your families in his attack of the space station Libra which resulted in its near fatal decent toward Earth.

"I choose to remember him for what he deserves memorial for: The savior of the Earth. The White Fang organization was constructed, organized, and run by people with nothing in mind but their own power and personal gain. He rose, stood against them, and fought; He fought to the bitter end against those who would take power and horde it for themselves. He ultimately fights beyond that bitter end through me.

"You see, there are those among the Earth's populace who feel that feel it was not my right to take this organization and position myself as the rightful head of the Earth Sphere government, that my father did not earn the right to be seen as the leader of all mankind.

"I assure you that without me this peace that you have all come to know and love will fall apart. Today I was attacked, as were the brave men and women who serve me."

Mariemaia gestured to someone and images replaced her face being broadcast worldwide. The four Gundams and the two Mobile Suits that had arrived to oppose her and her new regime appeared in battle, the accidental casualties of her soldiers on account of the first five being highlighted in particular while the carnage wrought later by the Talgeese and Ntaku was shown primarily un-edited in all of its bloody glory.

"I assure you, people of Earth and the Colonies, I am all that stands between yourselves and this carnage." Wounded, dead, or dying soldiers appeared, their corpses mixed with the corpses of the crowd the same soldiers had fired upon. In the background the little girl bobbed silently.

"The men and women who attacked on this day are terrorists, and nothing more. My regime is all that will save you. I ask only that you accept me into your hearts, minds, and souls. Thank you, my subjects, I leave you with my solemn promise that I will do everything within my power to save, serve, and protect you."

Another signal was made and the transmission was replaced by a slow, mournful montage of the dead with the words, "This is what I would save you from," printed in every language both above and below the images as they appeared.

"I'm afraid I don't understand why I'm even here, anymore. You've addressed your 'subjects' already, and yet I wasn't called upon to swear fealty to you or anything to that extent. I assume that you're going to explain?"

The redheaded girl before Relena Peacecraft smiled in the delighted method any other child would have smiled had they been asked if they'd drawn their lovely picture of a farm themselves, revealing once more just how different she was from the rest of her generation.

"But of course, Ms. Relena. You see, this _is_ my first address, and it has become necessary, due to the powers that have come against me, to twist the views of the public against the Gundams and their pilots.

"Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps a week from now you will have been 'found', beaten, malnourished, and in poor health in a location which has been harboring the Gundams. You will have been their prisoner, will denounce them as enemies of the nation and embrace my rise to power."

"And if I refuse to do so?"

"Isn't it wonderful what can be done with computer programs and the like today?" Came the reply, the smile on the little girl's face growing that much wider. Producing a small personal recording device from her pocket she activated it. A voice precisely identical to that of the woman before her was produced from the device, stating that she, Relena Peacecraft, now sanctioned Mariemaia and any action which she might take as the new head of the government.

"Granted there will be those who will claim that this is all false. It would much easier for all parties involved were you to simply state these words yourself, using makeup and the like to produce the image of you which we need. Otherwise, well, makeup isn't the only way to produce this image. You may well have endured such brutality that our best medical staff are, unfortunately, incapable of saving your life."

"Sir! Ma'am! We have another contact in the area! It's the Talgeese!"

"_WHAT!_" The incredulous reply came from the throat of Daacom who leapt forward to glare over the shoulder of the man monitoring the outer defenses.

"This is Zechs Merquise, the former leader of the White Fang organization and the last man to die in the Libra engagement. It is within my power to obliterate you all."

The Beam Rifle the Talgeese grasped split with an ominous **shunk** to allow for the build up of the energy necessary to obliterate the underground base that this new regime occupied.

"I think not," Daacom replied, his tone condescending at best. "Your own sister is in here." The words had a noticeable effect on Zechs, his eyes widening, nostrils flaring and head jerking back involuntarily to slam into the padding behind him.

"Relena? Is she-"

"She's standing right behind me, you maniac. With a mere spasm of my index finger I can end her life," Daacom continued, producing his side arm and aiming it at Relena's heart.

"Relena…"

"Zechs, peace is what is important in this situation!" Relena cried into the microphone to communicate with her brother, bounding forward to a position in front of the camera so that he could see her. "You have to do this… There must be blood on your hands, though this time for the first and last time."

Her brother looked at her, confused.

"I choose to die by the hand of Milliardo Peacecraft, my brother. The blood-encrusted hands of Zechs Merquise are no more." She closed her eyes. "Kill me, in the name of peace. Kill me in the name of the Peacecraft-"

"Relena, I _can't_ kill my own sister!"

Her eyes opened and narrowed. "Yes, you can. You can do so in the name of peace." She indicated the dented and warped roof above her head from where Ntaku's detonation had very nearly ruptured the metal to scorch the inhabitants of the room.

"You're in much the same position as Daacom is. A mere spasm of a finger can alter the lives of millions of people."

"So this is it." A tear formed in his eye, perched to fall from his hanging head. Energy gathered in between the split-sides of his Beam Rifle. "I am the last Peacecraft."

"Indeed you are." The energy levels peaked to optimum levels and Zechs was alerted of as much by the electronic "Ding" the internal computer produced.

"Wear the name well, Milliardo. Wear it well." He pulled the trigger, releasing an enormous amount of pent-up energy straight down. The brilliant light raced downward to decimate and destroy his enemies. The brilliant light raced down to decimate and destroy his sister.

**Killer Revenant: **Proper Noun: The appropriate name for Zechs Merquise, the man who swore never to kill again, and kept that vow unto his death, though not following the resurrection of Milliardo Peacecraft.

_A/N: No, this is not the end. This isn't _nearly_ the end. I have so much in mind for this story that it's funny. I almost had so much in mind that it wasn't even funny, but unfortunately I ran out of ideas before I could reach that point._

_More characters will die, and they will all act according to the news that they have. This means that the majority of the Earth Sphere and of MarieMaia's (Hah, now that I killed her I don't have to write that name anymore!)forces do not know of Ntaku's destruction, nor of Relena's death._

_Oh, yes, and I'm not telling anyone what happened to Zechs for some time. His suit was terribly damaged going through that blast. He might have come apart just like Wing Zero did- only those Vernie engines would detonate if the rest of the Mobile Suit did so, killing Zechs._

_So no, nobody gets to know just what happened yet._

_Oh, yes, and official kudos to anyone who can figure out _why_ Zechs survived by rushing into the fire: Here's a hint: It only worked because the explosion was so huge (And because he had a rather flame-retardant Mobile Suit)_

_Righto, that Author's Novel done, R&R, folks, else I _might_ leave it at this! (Anyone who writes "He might leave it at this! WOO!" Will be shot with a buster rifle ala the real end of Endless Waltz._


	8. Requim for the Dream

A balding head looked up from its work and aged eyes locked on the three young men entering his home.

"Duo! Jesus, thank God you got here! I saw what was going on down there and I feared the worst!"

"We're not that easy to kill. Neither are Gundams," Duo replied grimly. "Have you seen what happened to Heero? Wufei showed up at the Brussels estate, so I'm going to assume something bad."

Howard bit his lip and glanced down. "Yes, bad… Very, very bad." He tapped a few keys on a wireless keyboard and the main screen before the four of them lit up. Wing Zero hurtled toward the ocean and sent up a spray of water. The satellite image pixilated for a moment and froze, then jumped forward several frames and showed a huge fireball erupting out of the ocean.

"No!" Quatre leaned forward as if attempting to touch the image. "He… No… This is all my fault… All my fault…"  
Trowa looked him in the eye. "You could have done nothing to-"

"I took away our only means to fight this enemy," Quatre said, cutting him off. "If Heero'd had Wing Zero we wouldn't have been defeated back at the Brussels estate. Mariemaiea would likely be dead."

"Ah, that's the only good news," Howard said, interrupting. "See, after you folks left, Zechs stayed behind. Him and Wufei both."

The pilots watched in both horror and fascination as Ntaku was slammed from every conceivable angle, how it self-detonated, nearly ripped into the estate, and how the Talgeese III appeared, cannon in one hand, a melted glob of metal serving for the other. He fired, ripped through the defenses and blasted Mariemaiea and Dakim to their makers.

"You call this good news?" Duo asked slowly and darkly. "Relina Peacecraft is now dead. You saw what happened to Zechs after he lost his family once. Now what's going to happen that he just _killed_ his one remaining family member?"  
"I don't know," Howard replied. "What I do know it that we don't have to worry about Mariemaiea or Dakim any more."

"And possibly Zechs," Trowa added.

"You think so?" Howard asked.

"It makes some sense," came the reply. "He's lived a life of war all his life. While he realizes that it isn't the solution to every problem that doesn't stop him from treating it as the best viable option. Recall the Libra situation a year ago. He tried to destroy the Earth in the original operation Meteor gone overboard.

"If we leave him to his own devices once more he may see the need for 'peace' once again. He tried to destroy all life on the Earth to attain that last time. I shudder to think what he'll attempt this time."

"All… my… fault. If we just had our Gundams none of this would have happened in the first place. The situation wouldn't have escalated half this far- we could have destroyed this foundation any time we felt like it. And now hundreds are dead, all because of me."

"None of this is your fault, Quatre. Nobody could have seen this coming. Besides," Duo smiled grimly. "The God of Death is back. He needs a sidekick."

"I'll match you, death for death."

"Umm, yes, this is all very touching and all, but did you not have three mobile suits in desperate need of repairs?" Howard interjected.

"Er, yeah, we do," Quatre said, yanking himself from his state of depression. "We managed to get them on a trio of civilian shuttles set to go to the colonies. With the current situation it wasn't easy, but that's one of the benefits of having a Gundam, I suppose."  
"Abuse of power? Yeah, Duo used to do that _quite_ a bit."

"Not the time for jokes, Howard."

"You're right." The aged scientist stuck a pair of fingers into his mouth and whistled sharply. "Common, folks, we've got three Gundams that need fixing ASAP!"


End file.
